


Fifty-Four

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4516542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So many hurts and secrets and memories buried in her brief words, all the things they couldn’t manage to talk about no matter how hard they tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty-Four

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place about a year before the X-Files revival series.

On the morning of October thirteenth, he wakes, feeling every single one of his fifty-four years in his bones, his muscles, his tendons.

He has gray hair in places he never imagined. His knee makes an alarming popping sound when he steps out of bed. New lines have etched themselves into the flesh around his eyes.

Mulder stares at himself in the mirror, wondering who this reflected man is.

Happy Birthday.

*

The house is quiet these days. No more sounds of the shower running and her occasional tuneless humming. He doesn’t hear the tap-tap-tap of her heels across the floorboards or the kettle whistling for her tea. His phone rarely rings.

*

Just as he’s taking his first sip of coffee, his phone does ring. It’s her.

“Happy Birthday,” she says. She sounds thousands of miles away, even though she’s just in a high-rise condo in Richmond.

“Thanks.”

“Dinner tonight?” There’s a strange catch in her voice.

“Are you sure you want to, Scully?”

“It’s your birthday.”

His stomach rolls into a tight knot. A pity dinner. If he had the pride he’d turn her down, claim he had other plans.

But she knows he doesn’t have other plans.

“Where?” he asks. He pretends he doesn’t notice that his hand is shaking and a little coffee is splashing on the kitchen counter.

*

It wasn’t much of a surprise the day, six months ago, when she stood in the front doorway, suitcases in her hands.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

Mulder nodded. She’d been saying that for weeks.

He understood her clipped shorthand. So many hurts and secrets and memories buried in her brief words, all the things they couldn’t manage to talk about no matter how hard they tried.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I am, too.” He turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at her, at the guilt and resolve on her face.

The door closed firmly and he listened to the sound of her car’s wheels on the gravel drive.

It took him until much later that night to get up the courage to cry.

*

They survived floods, flames, and pestilence. Abductions, cancer, and shapeshifters could not tear them apart. The merest touch from her, a faint whiff of her skin, a sidelong glance in a rental car would leave him undone. But he never considered the consequences of those nine years—the wounds that went clean to the bone.

“I’m not happy,” she said one morning, tapping her spoon on her coffee cup.

“Can’t you at least  _try_?” As if he were the poster child for happiness.

“This is just existence, Mulder,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

He wondered if he’d ever truly known Scully or if everything he believed about her he’d made up in his head.

The worst part was that he knew he could never be enough for her.

*

Scully is standing in the bar at the crowded, noisy restaurant, a glass of what looks like whiskey in her hand. The old Scully of years ago would have drunk a glass of white wine, but this new woman likes brown liquor, as uncomplicated as possible.

There’s a bloom in her cheeks and something mischievous in those blue eyes. She’s going to tell me she met someone else, he thinks. Her black shirt is short and heels are high.

Mulder kisses her, just a peck on the lips. Even her perfume is new. Something rich and musky. Scully smells like danger.

“You look good,” she says, her eyes coolly sweeping up and down his body.

“Liar,” he says, and it almost feels like old times, especially when she smiles.

*  
Dinner isn’t as awkward as it could be. Every so often they get together for breakfast or a quick supper. “My therapist said to keep the lines of communication open. Honor our history,” she once said. They talk about the upcoming VCU basketball season and the conference she’s going to in Boston. She doesn’t mention anyone else and he’s relieved.

Mulder finds he’s able to keep up the patter but his thoughts are miles and decades away in a small motel room in Oregon, when her cheeks were still childishly round and her voice so earnest. They had no idea night that something much larger than themselves was blooming, both dark and beautiful.

He will not cry at his own birthday dinner, will not have tears of stupid regret running into his order of roasted branzino. He can, he will keep this together.

No, he won’t ask her to love him again, beg her to return home, and plead that he’ll be a better partner, will talk through the painful snags in their history, will do the dishes every single night rain or shine, will learn to relate to her as Dana Scully the doctor and productive member of society, and he’ll even try to let go of it all and accept the lie and stop chasing lights in the sky. If only, if only.

He orders a second beer instead.

*

Outside the restaurant, the air is crisp and smells like dry leaves. He lightly touches Scully’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says. “Nice of you to take me out on my birthday.”

She’s still so fucking beautiful, as if the years have rendered her once-soft features into finely carved marble.

She lifts her chin almost defiantly. “Come over tonight, Mulder.” Her smile is oddly shy.

He shakes his head and takes a step ack. “Oh, no. No. Not a good idea.”

No, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. His heart can’t take that. For a moment he hates her for being so cruel. One night in her paradise isn’t enough. It would never be enough.

He kisses her cheek again, smelling her spicy perfume again. He wonders, who are you? Will I ever figure it out?

He doesn’t know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?

She squeezes his hand. “Mulder, I need you to know that I still—" She stops herself and grimaces.

He nods and lets her hand go. “I know,” he says. The wind picks up and he shivers, feeling like something has walked over his grave.

Mulder blinks away a few tears. He turns away and walks back to his car, alone.

He pretends he didn’t notice that she had tears in her eyes, too.

The breeze carries her soft voice to him, wishing him a happy birthday.


End file.
